Identity Disinterred: The uses and abuses of a past in architectural representation of a present

Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Vida Norouz Borazjani

This thesis follows the development of the historicist understanding of collective identity in the architecture of Iran since the country’s modernization in the 1920s. The architectural approach was a consequence of much broader socio-political conditions and nationalist movements that led to the change of monarchy in 1925 and ultimately the revolution of 1979. In this sense the thesis focuses on the politics of production of architectural knowledge and historiography and follows their academic developments. Ultimately the research aims to construct a conceptual platform for critically assessing representations of identity in contemporary architecture revisiting the almost ignored value of the contemporary as a means of expressing a collective identity.

Niloofar Kakhi studied architecture in Iran becoming particularly interested the in the history of the discipline. In 2009 she received her Master’s degree in Histories and Theories of Architecture from the AA. She has been working on a number of architectural projects in Iran since 2007.